Surrogate image: Textile mill, Union Point, Georgia, 1941. Jack Delano. Photograph, 1941.
This is Alice Caudle. She is an African American mill worker. In an interview she gave, in September 2, 1938 in Concord, North Carolina, she talks about her interests in her work. Muriel L. Wolff asks, “Do you like working in a mill?” Her answer is brief and simple, she likes it very much, “I was born to work in a mill” she says. She started working since she was ten years old, this is what she was meant to do this. When she started she was so little that she had to stand on a box to reach her work. She was a spinner at first, and then she learned to spool. She says that being a woman and being able to work like this is the best thing that ever happened. When in the factory she works in, they put the new winding machines in, she asked them if they would teach her how to use them and they did without hesitating. “If I’d a-been a man no telling how far I’d-a gone.” I think that this is very good, especially during the great depression and in the early 1900’s, since everything was so restricted back then. And also, she seems like she likes a lot what she works with. I think that is a good thing, because when people like what they work with, they work better, and better things come from it.
Alice Caudle, Mill Worker
Surrogate image: Textile mill, Union Point, Georgia, 1941. Jack Delano. Photograph, 1941.
This is Alice Caudle. She is an African American mill worker. In an interview she gave, in September 2, 1938 in Concord, North Carolina, she talks about her interests in her work. Muriel L. Wolff asks, “Do you like working in a mill?” Her answer is brief and simple, she likes it very much, “I was born to work in a mill” she says. She started working since she was ten years old, this is what she was meant to do this. When she started she was so little that she had to stand on a box to reach her work. She was a spinner at first, and then she learned to spool. She says that being a woman and being able to work like this is the best thing that ever happened. When in the factory she works in, they put the new winding machines in, she asked them if they would teach her how to use them and they did without hesitating. “If I’d a-been a man no telling how far I’d-a gone.” I think that this is very good, especially during the great depression and in the early 1900’s, since everything was so restricted back then. And also, she seems like she likes a lot what she works with. I think that is a good thing, because when people like what they work with, they work better, and better things come from it.